Grants:Project/Rapid/Igniting Swahili Wikipedia and Capacity Building in Kenya/Report

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Report accepted
This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2021-22 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.


Goals[edit]

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Yes we did meet our goals to spark a community of swahili editors at the coastal region of Kenya, particularly in Pwani University. The project went well and we had the support of the Vice Chancellor, who graced the opening session and gave some remarks.

We however realised during the trainning that the swahili language department in the instituion was not well represented and we promised to do a follow-up virtual trainning that will be co-ordinated by their Head of Department. The students however went for long holidays and it was not possible to carry on with the virtual trainning by the time of submitting this report. We however plan to follow up on the same in August and September ahead of our planned community events Arts and Feminism Months of African Cinema Campaigns to leverage on the edit-a-thons that will be taking place.

Outcome[edit]

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.


Target outcome Achieved outcome Explanation
Capacity Building for community organisers in Kenya to learn about swahili wikipedia editing and how to incorporate swahili translation on existing english wikipedia campaigns 14 editors from the planning Wikimedia Community User Group Kenya were trained by Antoni Mtavangu from Wikimedia Community UserGroup Tanzania. This gave the editors the technical-know-how on editing swahili wikipedia. Community organisers also learned about how to incorporate swahili wiki editing during edit-a-thons and ongoing wikipedia projects. This proved to be effective as now our community events have two languages featured; english and swahili. For instance during a later wikipedia trainning with 100 girls at one of learning institutions in Kenya (Akira Chix), participants were also introduced to swahili wikipedia and there were about 13 folks who were only interested on swahili wiki and were guided on creating their accounts on swahili wiki.
Train new swahili editors at Pwani University and Increase wikipedia swahili content Facilitators from Wikimedia User Group Tanzania helped train 15 particpants at Pwani University that comprised of students from various faculties and librarians. We experinced the usual IP block challenge during the trainning that saw half of the partcicipants unable to open Wikipedia accounts so the editing practicals had to be done in groups and not on individual basis. This however also provided an oportunity for the teams to collaborate in developing the articles we had alloctaed them for editing that mostly comprised of Mmenbers of parliamnt in Kenya.


Learning[edit]

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

  • What worked well? Early preparations and great communications Skills that helped us put together communication materials like formal letters on letter head went along way in depicting the group as a serious entity. This saw us get goodwill from the office of the Vice Chancellor Mr Mohammed Rajab, who assured us of his support even in future projects.

We also had great co-ordination with the dedicated Tanzania team led by Antoni Mtavangu and they facilitated the vitrual trainings quite well. We also discussed with the VC and head of swahili department the possibility of collaborating to commemorate the first ever World Swahili Day on 7th July.

  • What did not work so well? We had hoped to have a fully inperson event will all teams (Kenya and Tanzania) on location but due to the WMF intl travel ban, the team in Tanzania could not travel to Kenya. Human connection especially when doing a community outreach for the first time is quite important. We exprienced some technical issues during the virtual trainning esspeacilly on sound and connection.

The IP block issue, which prevented new editors from ceating accounts.

The realisation that our mobilizer at Pwani Univeristy (Chief Libraraian) left out the swahili language department was quite a setback but we managed to contact the head of swahili department in the last minute and she graced the event, even though there was no time to mobilize her teeam. We promised to facilitate a virtual trainning for them and work with the department as a central focus in future events

  • What would you do differently next time?

Since we have now created a rapport with the universtity's VC and the head of language department at the instutition, we plan to work directly with the respective individuals in planning future events.

We also plan to include the new editors we recruited in our upcoming edit-a-thons that include; the She said campaign and Months of African Cinema so that they can continue identying different topic areas to plug in for sustainability.

Finances[edit]

Grant funds spent[edit]

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on. We received a total of USD 2,292 to faciliatate the following expenses;

Accommodation for 3 trainners in Kilifi, Meals and refreshments for both the team and the participants at Pwani University Branded Tshirts Banner Design and printing Social Media Campaign Data Support to enable participants attend the virtual trainnings. Local transportation that covererd airport transfers from Nairobi, Mombasa and Kilifi and local car hire. stationery Online Tools to facilitate virtual training with Tanzania Facilitators that include webcams Miscellaneous expenses that include bank charges, flight fare fluctuations facilitation/Coordination & Documentation Venue was provided bythe host institution at no cost.

Remaining funds[edit]

Do you have any remaining grant funds? No, all funds were utilised as budgetted for.


Anything else[edit]

Anything else you want to share about your project? The capacity building on editing Swahili wikipedia and the efforts to spark a community of wikipedia editors at the coastal region of Kenya has been a great initiative in our goal to champion knowledge equity and decentralise it to other regions in Kenya outside the capital. We are positive that by the ened of 2022 we would have covered two more additional counties namely Mombasa and Eldoret in our subsequent wikipedia campaigns.

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